The New Adventure
by MisterBland1
Summary: A growlithe named Doggy, sheltered deep within a sleepy forest, befriends a quilava and sets out to join the Adventure Initiative. When the growlithe is confronted with a plot that could destroy the Initiative from inside-out, he must show he has true grit in his craw, that he is ready to save his home-even if it requires finding what he seeks. PMD AU. Give it a shot :)
1. Chapter 1

Unbeknownst to most of the Territory, there lived a growlithe named Doggy. No one asked for him let alone gave birth to him. He came from Outside, also referred to as a miraculous birth since no child survives away from the Territory. During quiet times, not a single creature in Pathen, city of adventurers, spared a thought for the growlithe or knew he existed. Nor in the East Territory, the rich fortunate, nor the rest of the Territory, the unfortunate, beginning to growl with more than their stomachs. As a foreboding revolt brewed in the belly of the last pokémon, he miraculously escaped any kind of special attention.

Doggy only knew three pokémon to live at or visit his cabin. Grace, his caretaker, a gardevoir gentle enough to bear with all his spirit. Daté, the grovyle who slid in during the night and communicated in firm nods that roused Doggy, but to what purpose, he didn't know.

And the third, now, was a quilava drowning in the pond by the cabin.

Doggy had bounded off the dirt path, choosing to waylay chores for more playtime. To the pond, where the sodden bark of sycamores were ripe for scratching.

First came the splashes, followed by the narrow muzzle of a pokémon bobbing in the water like a reed. Rainclouds still loomed over the pond, and Doggy couldn't tell if the quilava was caught by lakeweed or unable to swim, the water was so murky. At first the muzzle seemed like another reed in the lake. Its beige fur stood out once it opened to cry for help.

"Hey! Hold on," Doggy called, broken from his stupor by the cry. "Grace. Grace!"

Then he stood, frozen. Water wasn't his place, either. A single, wild eye peeked at him from under the water. It closed, and the quilava opened his mouth wide as he sank. Things fell into motion. Doggy threw himself toward the water, wading through until his legs slipped off of the mud.

It was as if touching the water forbade him from breathing ever again. Even above the surface, the iciness closed his chest against air. The idea of going diving—Doggy thought of sinking and started to retreat.

He spun around. It had to be awful for the quilava, too. He drove his head under the water. It was like a chunk of hard snow to the head. An instant later the growlithe kicked up, screaming Grace's name, swimming for a log in the water.

Doggy took a breath and dove. Going under the water made the murkiness too deep, and he imagined he was at the wrong place, that the quilava was somewhere to the left or right, and they would both drown. But by this point, almost giving up twice had strengthened his resolve.

A shape appeared in the murkiness. Too panicked to care for the semantics, Doggy lunged and bit into the quilava's thigh. The way the thigh tensed told Doggy to kick hard and save the creature.

Steady ground laid far away. Blood and water frothed in the growlithe's jaw. The numbness lied to him: it sapped his strength faster than it let on, and soon he couldn't prevent himself from drifting deeper. Doggy refused to let go, even as the world began to rumble, and his chest started to eat itself alive in want of air.

Suddenly, a tremendous force prevented his foot from kicking. Terrified, Doggy drove his paw into it, causing him to lurch backwards. It was the ground.

Step by step, it was the longest haul of the pup's life. But in the end, the two children reached land.

"Grace." Doggy coughed out a swallow's worth of water. "Grace, help."

The quilava wasn't responding. His chest didn't rise and fall with air. After swallowing so much water, it would be a wonder if any air-breather survived. Somewhere Doggy knew this, yet he pushed it so far back it was less than a whisper.

Footfalls approached—Doggy tried to call out, but the water hadn't been merciful on him. Another voice cried: the quilava, choking on the water. The growlithe pushed him over onto his side then fell, defeated.

Daté, not Grace, appeared from the thicket. He forgot to nod to Doggy as he rushed to their aid.

"When a child swallows water," Daté said, "it is a matter of luck whether their mind remains intact. Unconsciousness for this long alone confers a great risk."

The grovyle paced around Doggy's bed. The hay was now soaked and would need a replacement before the day was through. On it laid a bundle of mottled fur, out from it came the rasping breaths of a quilava who badly needed air and was for too long declined.

"If I didn't turn around so much," Doggy said from under his blanket. "If only."

Daté nodded to him. "Some understand fear as gospel. They say it is their instincts, the presumptive force. You are wise to fight against it."

The growlithe turned his head aside, eyes squinting at the bed.

"What is wrong?" Daté asked.

"This is the first time we've talked. I see you so a lot, helping Grace with chores and giving her deliveries of food. And there was the time..."

The time with the shinx named Grain. A bully of a creature who put boundaries on the schoolyard and as if by taking grasp of a previous life, ran it better than the hardest thug. She weighed more, got fat on _something_ out there in a village where food had to be rationed by trained guards to prevent inequity. When she pinned Doggy it felt similar to submerging in the pond—except Arceus gave Grain the gift of thunder early, so she got to "see him flail," as bolts of energy forced his body to spasm. It became a one-sided battle: soon enough Grain only bullied him, the lone student who disappeared into the forest rather than playing wrestle after school. The child who, if a son or daughter asked about him, the parent forbade them to ask again with a curt growl. Rather than confront her, Doggy begged to stay home and play—or even help Grace take on whatever business she did.

Then Grain came up to him one day. She sobbed for a full minute, and then pined about his "protection:" A green shade had seeped into her bedroom and put a stalk of leafy blades against her neck, the intent obvious. She called him cursed and claimed she understood why grownups shooed away all her questions about him.

Doggy smiled at the grovyle. "You're so cool."

If the complement flustered Daté, he didn't show it. "Grace says you use that often," he said. " _So cool."_

Doggy's tail, still soaked, whipped against the floor. "Yup!"

"In this forest, I suppose you find one cool thing. Then another, or even two more. And you go to sleep, wake up, and go again to find more things which warrant your approval."

Doggy pressed his large tongue against his canines, as was his habit when confused. "I'm not following."

"How long can you find cool things in this forest?" Daté leaned down, pressing a hand onto the quilava's head. The creature shuddered and curled into a ball. "Maybe now is the wrong time to bring this up. I'm sure you will glean a year or two of excitement from this newcomer. Eventually, however, you shall become jaded. Letting things come to you is hardly adventurous. Trust me."

At first, talking with his idol was fantastic, yet now Doggy wished the grovyle was less wordy. There was so much truth in the words, and so little of the forest left for his four paws to discover. He hung his head, burying his nose in his fluffy chest—or tried, as water matted the fluff. In fact, if the quilava wasn't awake in the next several minutes, he would need to bathe before Grace returned to a cabin full of wet-fur-smell. The smell of antiseptic billowing from the quilava's bandage already stank enough.

The quilava's eyes opened and he let out a rasping sigh. Daté retreated to Doggy's side.

"Hey may be a docile," Daté said. "Do not make sudden movements, lest he tries to defend himself."

The quilava had a blasé expression, his jowls set straight and his eyes scanning the room, not for objects, but as if relearning his cardinal directions. Once, twice his stare passed right by the two pokémon, hitching on their bodies then rolling up to stare at an unlit lantern resting on the table. His limbs contorted, shooting out in every direction, unraveling from the tension of a forced slumber.

Then the blasé expression was smitten by terror. He threw his body against the wall, he took cover underneath his paws and trembled for dear life.

"All is well," Daté said. "Do not be alarmed."

"W-W-Why am I back here?" He asked.

"He's not docile," Doggy whispered. Docile pokémon were incapable of speech or reason. This behavior didn't quite prove the latter. "That's not the first question I'd ask, though."

"It is remarkable to see him so animated. Quilava, you almost drowned. This pokémon here saved you."

The quilava twisted, falling onto his bitten thigh. The resulting screech made Doggy scramble to plug his ears.

"No," the creature said.

" _No_?" Doggy asked, hunched over. "You looked right at me! Those teeth marks in your leg are mine."

"No," the quilava repeated. "I woke up. I was in my bed. Did I fall back to sleep?"

Doggy turned to Daté. "Is… the water addled his brains, didn't it? Did I save him just for him to live out his days all crazy?"

Daté put a hand on Doggy's shoulder. "I encountered this same situation in my youth. Mercy is another oft-confused idea. You can tell that this quilava wants to live."

The quilava growled, which devolved into a whine. "I do want to _live…_ as a human. This is not me!" He yelled, prompting Doggy to take a step back.

Something happened that Doggy never believed he would witness: Daté, inching towards the panicked pokémon, seemed at a loss. In fact, anger overwrote his features. The cabin became silent.

"Doggy, you had some chores to do." Daté said. "Take care of them."

"Did he just refer to himself as human? This is worse than we thought."

"There is one too many pokémon here. Leave."

"Come on... Da-"

"Go!" Daté snapped.

Doggy turned tail and rushed out the door, to the sound of the quilava muttering the same phrase, over and over again:

"Please wake up."

* * *

"Stupid!" Doggy shouted. With a cry he sent a branch flying into a tree trunk. Branches, leaves and dirt exploded into the air as the growlithe went along on his rampage.

"How can he say that my life isn't adventurous, then kick me out?" Doggy asked a nearby tree. Its skinny trunk didn't answer. "I didn't even get to learn the name of the pokémon I saved. I didn't get to learn how he got smack-dab in the middle of that pond. And by the time I get back… I bet my ears… he'll be gone!"

 _Crack._ Doggy picked up a branch and threw it. The next one he hefted up, flailing it around to hurt the low-hanging vestige until it caught against a tree, ripping away from him.

The pain in his jaw fueled the fire in his belly. With a shout he attempted to cut that sycamore down with his right forepaw. The sturdy wood caught his toe-claws and almost tore those away too. He tumbled down, hastily inspecting his forepaw for wounds.

Wet sycamores had bark easy to tear away. But when Doggy matched against a dry tree, it just spelled out the inadequacy. This was why Grain had chosen him as her victim, not for the mystery surrounding him, but for the fact that anyone could see he lived a sheltered life.

Grace kept him safe. Everything in life was wet sycamores and protection from bullies.

A word came up from the back of his mind. A special one that brought him comfort in stormy nights or when the Territorial Floodplains spilled over the forest, so he and Grace had to take refuge from the rapids on their roof.

"Deathseeker," Doggy said to the trees. "It means that I don't run from death until it corners me. I chase death, helping those who are in its grasp. Letting things come to you… is hardly adventurous. I don't want a cozy life."

His mood changed from angry to thoughtful. Quilava shared the same fire properties as him, and thus hated water just as much. They had stubby arms, so maybe they hated water more.

 _What if he_ is _human?_ He wondered.

"Hey, punk," a voice called. "What the heck is a _deathseeker?_ "

Doggy shot up to all fours. He recognized the voice. Grain skulked forward, appearing from behind a tree.

"What are you doing here Grain… and Liv?"

A linoone peeked from behind the same tree. He almost never left the ground, and despite Doggy being on all fours like him, Liv had to look up to see more than the growlithe's legs.

"H-Hi," Liv said. "All that death seeking stuff is scary. I told you he does scary stuff when he's alone."

Grain hoisted a paw, grooming its top with gentle licks. "Doggy won't hurt a fly. Or a tree, attacking like that."

Doggy let the comment slide. "There is _no_ way your parents let you play this far from the village."

"When you attack a hard object," Grain said, ignoring him, "you don't thrust your claws into it. You slash across, adding small cuts, weakening your opponent until you can… attack… their weak spots!"

She lunged forward, prodding the growlithe. He skittered away with a yelp. But he found it impressive, not scary.

"Sheesh," she mewled. "Don't ogle me. Y'see, Liv and I are done with school."

"Done?" Doggy asked. "But we still have next year. We'll learn how to tend the fields and repair tools. Or I can do blacksmithing because I'll someday be able to make fire. Oh, and foraging. I might become a forager myself." As long as Grace allowed it, foraging would lead him away from the same old spots.

"How did you say all that without yawning?" She asked. "Let me inform you, shut-in: those are _vocational_ years. Apprenticeships around the village."

"Grace..." Doggy remembered: he wasn't to speak her name to anyone besides Daté. "Gracefully… put."

The response forced a chortle out of the shinx. "Pah, what?"

"That's not what I hear," Doggy said, his cheeks heating up. "Next year is required." Grace had said so herself.

Liv scooted forward. "O-Or you can go to Pathen," he said, "and become an adventurer. None of our parents ever told us, either."

"No." _I sound like that quilava,_ Doggy thought.

Grain smiled. "The old heatmor that runs the smithy spilled the beans. We're out here collecting firewood to pay for our passage to Pathen."

"I am holding all the wood," Liv said. The basket strung around his back was filled to the brim with dry branches. He glanced at Grain, hope in his eyes.

"Right. And Liv is holding all the wood." She shot a glance back. "He has to get brawnier _somehow_."

"Linoone are supple by nature," he muttered.

Grain shook her head. "Tsk, tsk. Some pokémon will say _anything_ to shirk their work. What about you, Doggy? Are you upset?"

The question slapped Doggy across the face. "Huh?"

"That green shadow protects you, right? Well, protect against this: I get to see Pathen, become an adventurer, and live out my days having adventures Outside. You get to stick around here and help that doofus heatmor run his shack. Who's going to be wondering about who everyday _now_ , mutt? My name's Mutt," she mocked, marching around the growlithe. "I seek death. Watch out, villager, you spade is broken! Without a spade you cannot irrigate, without irrigation you cannot provide water to the crop, no water, no food, no food, no order—ding! Ding! Ding!" She imitated a hammer, pounding her thick paws into the dirt. "The spade is fixed; Mutt saves the Territory again!"

"S-Shut up, you..." Doggy fervently wished for word for cats like "mutt." He felt himself deflating. This was the worst part about Grain's routine. The words. The insults never ceased, before Daté or after him.

Grain slapped Doggy's shoulders with her tail. "Repeat that over and over for sixty years, and you've got your life, _deathseeker_."

"Stop it..."

"Liv, let's ditch this fool. Before he sics his bodyguard on us-"

"I met a human!" Doggy shouted. "I… I saved him from a pond, he turned into a quilava."

Grain stopped in her tracks. She refused to look back.

"I'll believe you," she said. "If you at least tell me your real name."

Doggy's mouth opened, then closed. "D-Doggy _is_ my name."

"...Goodbye, fool."

And the two children left. As they did, Liv wondered out loud: "why was he all wet?" Then they were gone.

Doggy wasn't in the mood to rampage anymore. He started to pick up branches for the fire he would need tonight.

Like he thought: the quilava, and any evidence of him, was gone. Grace scrubbed his scent away while Doggy was busy with chores. The gardevoir worked to get rid of the last evidence, the wet pile of hay, while the growlithe sat in the corner. In hours, the most exciting moment in his life had become another memory, and it became harder by the moment to deny that he would regret any future involving the cabin.

Grace spun. She handled the wet, muddy hay yet didn't dirty herself. Her every movement flowed into the next, no delays, no guessing what came next in her routine. Often, Doggy liked knowing when she was about to speak, or scratch his head. Today it was just frustrating.

"Sorry, child," she said. "I am afraid we have no hay left."

"I want to talk about the quilava," he told her. It bordered on being a command.

Grace smiled. "Sweet child..."

It wasn't a _no_. He decided to risk it all. "I want to talk _to_ the quilava."

"Have patience. Daté must see if he has family in the area. You cannot simply steal pokémon from their families and call them friends, silly growlithe."

"He has no family here. He was a human." In the hours it took to collect the wood, he convinced himself of this. The word "human" was ancient legend, a far cry from the lore of folktales told around the Territory. Doggy himself learned of the humans after cornering Grace after a slip-up. So for a quilava his age to throw it out there had to be more than chance.

And he wanted to bring the quilava to school to show up Grain.

Grace, often understanding, shut him down with a frown. "I am disappointed, Doggy." He winced; hearing his name from her meant nothing but trouble. "That quilava is suffering from a mental malady. Would I allow you to speak with him and solidify his delusions? I would do no such thing—I am appalled! If you were not sleeping on the floor already, I would take away your bed."

"I _won't_ take it back," he growled.

"No dinner."

"Wha… come on!"

"I kid. Nonetheless, take care of how you treat others. No matter how you speak to someone, they may listen a different way. Have you bathed yet? You should have bathed before collecting wood, smelly growlithe."

When Grace described the humans, she used her likeness to put an image in Doggy's mind. Tall, dignified, able to reach and tinker. Humans might not be kind, or warm, but they had a chance if they looked like her. She leaned down, hugging him.

"I'm not a puppy anymore," Doggy said. "Don't say _silly_ this, _smelly_ that, please." He looked up at her. "Do you think _I_ could be an adventurer?"

"You've been talking with the other children," Grace said. The hug ended. "And Daté put ideas into your head. That sneaky grov… pardon me." she curtsied jokingly.

"He did," Doggy admitted. His ears drooped down—at this point, he was better off dreaming of foraging.

"I wish for you to wait until conditions improve in the Territory. The Adventurer Initiative is not what you expect. Its flaws mark the Territory. I hoped you would never experience these flaws, ever since I first discovered you roaming this forest."

He hung his head. "I understand, Grace."

"But all things have their flaws, I suppose. Should you choose to leave after finishing school… I've saved money. Enough for the fare to Pathen, a month's stay in their inns, and even some for entertainment. After I came to know you, I assumed the Initiative would pull you away, so I struggled to find a way to prevent it from hurting you. There is none other than witnessing it."

The words made little sense to the growlithe. When they became clear, there was no stopping the grin that spread across Doggy's face.

"I—you mean me? I get to apply?!" He bucked up onto his hind legs. "So _cool!_ T-Thank you! This is..."

Grace had taken a seat in the cabin's rickety chair. She smiled, yet it was bittersweet.

"I did it again." Doggy sighed and walked over to the chair. "You're trying to tell me I will be disappointed, and I am whooping for joy."

"What you see there will hurt you," Grace said. "It hurt me."

" _You_ were an adventurer?!"

"Traveling Outside is dream come true. To return alive and successful, to not succumb to the wilds, it becomes an addiction. You try harder, you redouble your efforts, to make every adventure more successful than the last. Until in a fit of hubris, pokémon die due to your actions. I have a new addiction: helping pokémon like you. You don't need to be a part of some club to have stories told in your name."

Doggy shook his head clear of its cobwebs. "I guess… Grain was teasing me and it got to my head. Suddenly all I wanted to do was join, join, join. Sorry. I love you, Grace."

She chuckled. "I love you too, Doggy. One day, we will work together to make the Territory a better place."

The door to the cabin clicked open. He spun around, expecting to see Daté. Instead, the quilava stood in the doorway, the same confused look on his face, yet noticeably calmer. The newcomer waddled in, not putting his forepaws on the ground. Doggy was trapped between hiding his surprise and stifling his laughter.

"He's still here!" Doggy exclaimed. "Why wouldn't you tell me?"

"He asked for time alone," Grace said. "If I told you, you would have hounded him."

"Yeah, probably." He couldn't stop wagging his tail. For the first time ever, the cabin had two children under its roof.

The quilava stopped a few paces from the growlithe.

"Thank you for saving me from that pond," he said. "I have no recollection of how I got there."

"Maybe you fell from the sky," Doggy said. The allure of the mystery begged him to pursue this idea, but he remembered Grace's words. The quilava looked one wrong implication away from a meltdown. "And no problem. What did Daté do with you?" There weren't cuts or bruises, which excluded the worst possibility. All that had changed in the few hours was that the quilava's scent now included that of the forest's dirt, and the antiseptic on his leg stopped reeking.

"He showed me the Territory. I..." he looked up the gardevoir. "I have some impairment to my memory. Seeing the Territory helped set things aright a little."

 _Memory problems. He seems unsettled, but okay,_ Doggy thought. _When he woke up, he was about ready to call me a figment of his imagination, he claimed to be a human!_ _In fact, the way he speaks is sort of stilted. Like Grace. Like a human, I bet._ Doggy shook the thought away. _No, I have to cut it out!_

"Grace works miracles," Doggy said. "If anyone can bring your memory back, it's her."

The quilava sighed. "I'm sorry for ruining your bed, though I'm afraid I must ask for another."

Grace bent over and ran a hand down the sided of the quilava's head. He recoiled from the touch, a flash of frustration in his eyes. "Use my bed, child, as I will be out tonight," Grace said. "But come eat dinner first," Grace said.

The two children sat around a small table and enjoyed their dishes of oatmeal with burberries in peace. The disgusted expression of the newcomer as he lapped up the oatmeal, his subtle annoyance at how it dripped from his muzzle, made Doggy's curiosity insatiable.

* * *

Nighttime came swiftly, and Doggy found that his dive into the lake stole all of his energy. He wanted to stay awake to see Daté or Grace return to the cabin. He yawned and yawned, his will breaking down, until the growlithe laid snoring on the ground still dreaming of the grovyle. Still imagining the lake, and adventurers, and what the rest of his life would look like now that he knew the truth.

Wind beat down on the cabin. Its foundations shook, the creaking a lullaby for Doggy. Moonlight shone in through the windows. A gibbous moon was not enough to cast the room in a gray pale: it had to be full, and when it was, the entire room turned a vibrant shade of blue.

A squeaking joined the ranks of creaks. Doggy roused himself, eyes squinted from grogginess. He scanned the room. On Grace's bed—the sheets ruined now by loose fur—was the quilava, sobbing. Whenever a gust weaned a crackle out of the walls, he would duck under his paws and whimper his favorite word: _no_.

 _It's better if I let him be_ , Doggy concluded. _Just because I grew up to these noises, doesn't mean they are harmless. He'll get used to it._

The quilava did not. An hour passed, Daté and Grace still out on their errand. Then another hour, of whimpering and howling and begging at nothing but the musty ceiling.

Finally, after a particularly large gust of wind caused the cabin to quake, and the quilava to shriek, Doggy's paws tensed up.

"I'm trying to sleep!" Doggy yelled.

The reply was a wail, tumbling into body-racking sobs.

 _Darn it,_ Doggy thought, starting to breath in shallow breaths. _His crying is starting to scare me._

The growlithe rose to his feet and padded over to the bed. The quilava cried so intensely, Doggy could smell the tears and snot staining the sheets.

In his best, calmest voice, Doggy asked: "what's wrong?"

The quilava jolted, his entire body tensed up. He let out the tension with a rasping whine.

"I'm scared," he said. "The wind keeps howling. It's gonna knock the house down."

Plain and simple. The stilted creature who waltzed into the cabin this evening had disappeared.

"No, it won't," Doggy whispered. "I've lived here for ten years. Since I was tiny enough to fit on this bed with Grace. Not once, never-ever, has a single wood chip went fell off. You know, it helps me get to sleep."

"How?"

"I dunno. I guess the noises you grow up with just change. Your ears take them in differently." Doggy fumbled. He would never disrespect Grace again; helping others was hard. "Pretend… pretend you are me. And you've slept in this house all your life. And whenever the house creaks, it means safety."

"When I was in the water," the quilava said, not quite speaking to anyone, "The water got into my stomach. But in my head, everything was worse. This isn't my body. I thought this was a nightmare. Yet everything keeps getting realer, and realer… everything I was before today, has died. I can't just imagine myself as a _another_ pokémon. I can hardly imagine this."

 _He's going off the hinges again!_ Doggy thought, alarmed.

The quilava, nose crusty with snot, hung his head over the side of the bed. He looked up at the growlithe, pleading.

"I was not always a quilava. Grace bullied me into saying I have memory problems. I am—was—human."

Doggy stared straight out the window at the full moon. The wind paused. If anything woke him up, it was the periods of silence. It was being left alone to think about things like adventuring, Grain, the Territory. Now this.

"Grain doesn't bully pokémon," he said once the creaking restarted. Then, under his breath, he added:

"What was being human like?"

"I don't remember," the quilava whined.

Doggy exhaled through his nose. "So you do have memory problems. Just not the ones Grace told you to have..." he couldn't bring himself to do it: admit he believed that Grace pushed this creature into a lie. After his talk with her in the evening, a part of him learned something about the gardevoir, toxic enough for him to forget it right away. Grace was biased. Against the Adventurers Initiative, and against humans. How she obtained a hang-up on humans was baffling. Nonetheless, it was there. A fear of humans plopping outside her cabin.

"When she bullied you," Doggy said, "it wasn't to hurt you. I have no idea why being a human is dangerous, but she thinks so. This is how she protects others. How she defends me."

"By making you lie to yourself," The quilava whispered, as if she might be outside the door. "By frightening you, right?"

Doggy gaped and, not able to stop himself but able to curb his anger, cuffed the bed. His paw bounced off the soft padding, leaving a few holes. Grain's advice on clawing, to swipe, came and went in a furious moment.

"She doesn't take it that far!" Doggy shouted. "I am free to make any decision I want, so watch your mouth! Just shut up!"

The quilava started crying again.

"Daté told me," he said between the sobs, "the Initiative might help me return home, b-by finding something in the place he called Outside. And she, a-and she said I would die gruesomely if I ever went to Pathen."

"She didn't say _gruesomely._ "

"She said my bones would be licked clean by ferals if I ever set foot Outside. She told me I had a choice, even showed me the money for the trip, but should I choose to go to Pathen..." he covered his eyes. "I will die alone and in more pain than I've ever felt before. Worse than drowning in the yucky pond-water!"

Doggy sat tall, rearing his head back. "No." It was his turn to use that safe word. "No. None of that is true. You're lying."

"Please, I'm not. I-Imagine you are me. And you have never met her, and she has never taken care of you. Can you believe it?"

 _What does Grace do on the nights she isn't here?_ Doggy asked himself. He couldn't staunch the flow of thoughts:

 _How did her time as an adventurer fall apart?_

 _If this is a lie, then why does Grace's actions towards the quilava mirror those towards me?_

 _Am I easier to convince than a crybaby? All it took was a bit of disappointment._

 _And love, lots of love._

 _Who is she?_

 _Is her story of finding me alone… is that a lie to_ protect _me, too?_

 _...Who am I?_

Doggy came slamming back into the real world. His eyes widened: somehow, he had gotten into Grace's chest at the end of the bed. In it was the lump of money she waved in front of them.

The quilava sat up on the bed. He wiped away his tears, watching Doggy pull out the bag with his trembling teeth.

"What are you doing?" He whispered, recognizing the bag.

"I'm not sure if you can call me well-suited to adventuring," Doggy said. He felt steps away from a fit of his own, held back by a thin thread, somehow strong enough to hold fear back. "But I know a single gambit. If you seek death, you get to fight it on your own terms. I won't wait for it in this cabin anymore." The shack creaked its disapproval. The wind howled, louder than ever, knocking away part of the outside windowsill.

The quilava blinked. "D-Do you mean..."

Doggy nodded. If it wasn't for the quilava, he would have been content to stand by. This was his second and last chance. It was now or never.

"Want to be an adventurer with me?" He asked.

* * *

 **A/N: well, I'm rebooting New Adventure as something with hopefully more focused plotlines, less characters (I say, as I introduce six in one chapter, so I should say a more _robust_ cast of characters), and real stakes for both the world and the characters. I also shifted from the human's PoV to the companion, for now. I cannot say with absolute certainty how this story will work out, but I would appreciate any sort of review providing insight. **

**Thank you,**

 **MisterBland1**


	2. Chapter 2

It was a momentous day for Sunstarch Village.

It was the day the eldest pokémon of basic schooling accepted their burden: to ensure their village's survival in the face of waning supplies. At the crack of dawn, before the sun poked over the horizon, every trade made itself obvious near the schoolyard. Working tirelessly, as always, but in view of these blank canvasses. Today the traders and their carriages met the backs of several pokémon, an empty square, and the hope of whisking away a child to help alleviate their own toils.

And Doggy, with his hastily-chosen companion, a sleeping quilava, peeked out at the carts from underneath the porch of Sunstarch's single inn.

He squinted, looking them over. One in particular seemed most like an escort: a large tauros, his carriage empty and fitted with brown leather benches on each side: the perfect space for transporting smaller creatures to Pathen. The tauros looked around at the other traders and made a comment, prompting a laugh out of the crowd.

A bibarel laughed so hard his belly shook. "Right, right, we're the hopeful ones!" He cried out, loud enough for Doggy to hear. Above him, someone in the inn growled at the presence of noise this early in the morning. "You should have taken the day's rest, Tello. No one from this village plans on going to Pathen."

"Did you ever imagine," Tello replied, "that circumstances can't hold a leash on a critter ready to be a painter or an adventurer?"

Doggy's heart did a flip. He prodded the quilava with his nose. "Hey, you, wake up. Our ride is… what's so funny?"

The quilava grinned. "I had a good dream last night. Before, it was all nightmares. Then I slept next to you, and it was wonderful. I had a dream we were in a gigantic city, and it was full of towers-"

"Save it. We need to get going." Doggy grabbed his bag of money. He breathed in deep through the weave of the pouch, taking in the smell of metal. "Hey!" He called, springing out from under the inn. "Over here, we would like to go to Pathen!"

The tauros, Tello, gaped.

"Lad, did you crawl out from under the inn?"

Another voice called, and he turned away from the pair.

Grain, her own payment ready to go, stopped a few steps short of the carriage. "Hey, bull, we'd like passage—Doggy? _Doggy_..."

"Huh," the bibarel said, shrugging. "I'll be damned. Good call, Tello."

Liv looked around. He spotted the quilava, also backing away from the standoff, and went to join him.

The growltihe tensed up. "We got here first. Get your own cart!"

"I will cut your belly open, so you're too busy putting your _guts_ back in the right place to go anywhere. Where did you get the money? Did momma give it you?"

"My parents," Doggy answered. "But I earned it."

"Aw, the wittle puppy hasn't weaned off of momma. Momma's perfect baby-waby was so cute and scrumptious, he got an a-wow-ance. Liv, Doggy's momma gave him an a-wow-ance."

All the insults did was remind Doggy of Grace. She would return from her outing—or might have gotten back already, which scared him—and see her child gone. He reminded himself of how she brought it on herself, and how punitive he was being, but how it was necessary, but how it hurt so, so much to hurt her like this, and he started to tear up again.

Liv looked at the two and laid down. "Mom's milk? How shameful," he said, half-invested.

Grain smiled. "Right you are! You gonna cry, puppy? Run home to your magical home in the forest. Liv and I are supposed to be Sunstarch's adventurers. Get out. Get out, idea-stealer!"

"Fine," Doggy mumbled. "Just shut up."

"I agree," Tello cried out. "Oh, by Arceus, by my poor, aging, addled brains, why have I deigned to transport children as a living? There is room enough for all of you, two to a side. You can face the other way or point your noses up to the ceiling, I don't mind much."

"Hey," Doggy said, turning to the quilava, "let's see if we can find another carriage."

The quilava's ears flattened against his head. "Oh. He says there is enough room. It would make me comfortable to have others along."

"Oh, I'm not company enough, is that it? Come on."

"We might not be able to hide from _her_ any longer, though. This is our chance."

"Not worth it. You go ahead." Tail between his legs, Doggy began to inspect the other options. Perhaps he could hitch a ride with a merchant.

"Wait," Grain called as he walked away. "You, quilava, tell me your name. I've never seen you around before. I had no idea Doggy knew anyone outside of school."

The quilava stopped in his tracks. "Name?"

" _Name? Name?"_ She repeated in a blubbering, mocking voice. "Don't tell me—you must be related to Doggy."

"I, um..."

"Upright," Doggy answered. "Since he walks everywhere on his hind legs."

The quilava looked down at his legs, then back at Doggy, with a look that said "this isn't normal?"

Liv stepped forward. "It must be a nickname, then. Unless his parents showed remarkable foresight."

"Another stupid forest-creature who won't give out his real name," Grain said. "Yup, part of the ol' Doggy household."

"He has amnesia," Doggy said. "He can't remember his name, nor what happened. It's like I said, I saved a pokémon from drowning yesterday."

"Not _exactly_ your words," Liv said, eyes widening. The word he had used then was _human_. "Er, nice to meet you, Upright. Sorry about your amnesia. I'd say you chose a nice place to wake up but, well, it would be ironic to say as we all sneak out at the crack of dawn."

Upright nodded approvingly at the name and story. "I want to go to Pathen to see if anyone recognizes me. Maybe become an Adventurer otherwise. Please, I think we can coexist if we put our minds to it."

Grace scowled at Doggy, who returned it twofold. For a moment, her expression eased. "Fine. But you two pay for the inn. Your money bag is way fuller than ours."

Upright gave Doggy a hopeful smile. The growlithe looked up to the sky and stomped his paws.

"Sure, let's do it. I like the idea of Grain owing me."

Tello groaned lough enough to grab their attention. "Just show me my two-thousand poké a head and come aboard, before I decide to leave you all here to throw your fits. It'll be a one-week trip, so be ready for hours on end of this room."

They did so. Just being near the shinx made Doggy's hackles rise. As the tauros suggested, he took a seat in the far left corner and pointed his nose to the roof. Beside Grain being in it, the leather felt cool and the air, though a little hot, was decent, considering they were in what amounted to an ornate box.

She slammed her bag of supplies down on his tail. He yelped and moved over to the other side.

"Watch my tail," He growled.

"Your tail is bushy and stupid," Grain said. "Unlike mine, which is thin and beautiful. It can also do this." She whacked him in the head with the star at the end of her tail. The growlithe swatted at it, yelling insults.

"You must have a death-wish," Liv said to Upright. "Are you sure you want to sit through a week of this?"

"I was scared out of my mind about this the other night," he said. "But I had a good dream. Nothing will bring me down."

Outside, Tello was shouting at someone. The pokémon approached in spite of the protests and wrenched open the right window. The children felt the breeze and looked up.

Daté poked his head in.

"Going somewhere?" He asked.

Grain's tail fell limp and she pushed herself into the wall. Doggy gaped, also trying his best to shrink into nothingness.

When Upright saw the grovyle, he decided to scream bloody murder. Everyone—Liv included, even so he only knew Daté from Grain's stories—began to scream in turn. It took Tello coming around to the back to remedy the situation. It took a couple minutes more to stop the panting, the shaking and the whining. A couple more to convince Tello to not cancel the trip. It mattered little, though. Daté caught them.

Doggy stood out in the fresh air. He couldn't believe it. This close to freedom, and a single argument ruined their chances.

"Grace is sick with worry," Daté said.

Doggy nodded. "I know."

"She thinks you've gone already and took the quilava with you."

"I was close to it. It's just… Upright says Grace told him all these awful stories about the Initiative, basically bullied him into agreeing to stay. And I can't argue with her or I end up feeling guilty for even trying. This was the best way to leave."

The grovyle stepped away from the carriage. He looked out at Sunstarch, towards the other students who had begun to seek out apprenticeships. Several of them had seen children by the carts and now their parents watched. To see if their small vilalge had managed, somehow, to produce four adventurers.

Daté walked over to the tauros. "Pardon my intrusion," he said.

Tello moaned. "My poor, poor brain… kids can put a loudred to shame."

"I am going to give you an extra thousand poké per head. In return, enter the Warm Woods due south of the normal entry. As of right now, it is too perilous to bring adventurers in through the main road."

Doggy's eyes widened. _Daté is letting us go… he's letting us go!_

With a happy cry, the growlithe ran up to the grovyle and leaned against him. An arm wrapped around the growltihe: it was pure joy.

"I don't accept directions," Tello said. "Easy enough way to get ambushed by the critter who gives them."

"I am paying you money to take a safer route for a child I… appreciate. Accept the money. I know you need it."

Tello sighed. "You are world-wary, grovyle. East Territory ousted the elderly drivers from their towns. Just up and refused to hire us, no reason why, but I can see I no longer am the looker I lied about being upon a time."

"It is dangerous nowadays. So take the money or retire."

"Fine, Arceus damn you. I promise to take your route and money. Usually I would show a young thing like you his place. But this trip here is to enjoy the roads a final time. Then its out to pasture." The tauros looked at the ground, contemplating. "Won't this screaming batch leave me regretful."

Doggy whimpered. "Oh… sorry..."

"That's right, I'm going out to better pastures. Out to the pastures of the farm I bought! Hee-hee, get your behind in the carriage, we're burning daylight, this old bull's got it in him for decades yet."

Doggy marched forward, not quite getting the joke. Daté's hand stopped him. An image swirled within the icy orb. He shuddered away from it, but his eyes refused to leave its sapphire allure. Inside seemed to be the perpetual fury of a rainstorm.

"When you arrive in Pathen," Daté said, "stay awake till midnight. Place this orb somewhere decent."

"Somewhere decent. It looks expensive."

"Priceless. No slums or garbage heaps." He gave one of his customary nods. "It's been… nice talking to you, Doggy. Get a move-on."

Doggy embraced the grovyle one more time before running up the ramp.

"You tried to sic your guardian on me," Grain said. There wasn't even time to find a seat before the harassment started. "One more time for the road, I guess. I assumed he was going to become an adventurer for you. Eat for you, too-"

"Please," Upright said, paws raised. " _Coexist_."

The shinx huffed and looked out the window. Liv took the other side, nose pressed against the glass.

"Cried a pokémon—the linoone's mother, it seemed. "Be safe."

"I will," Liv called back.

Then the father called out. "Send money back."

"I will."

"Tell the city-folk we need reparations on the trade-roads into Sunstarch!"

"Yes, father."

"Send a letter back detailing what produce will be selling in Pathen this Spring."

"Of course..."

"You're not going to be able to see your family through that window, Grain," Upright said. "Liv, let her borrow yours."

Liv glanced back, shook his head. Grain continued to stare out the window which only contained the inn and empty houses. She gritted her teeth.

* * *

"This is going to sound bad," Doggy said to Upright. He sniffed the air. "I wish I could take a dip in this pond."

The quilava frowned. "I'm not going to rescue you."

Doggy feigned disappointment and rolled over onto his back. Clouds drifted over the Territorial Floodplains, long white streaks as opposed to the gray stormclouds over Sunstarch. Tello told them this was the last trip before winter, where the snow would cause floods. Seeing his forest home submerged had been an experience. The idea of this unending expanse flooding over seemed ridiculous. _But_ , he thought, _I'd be fine washing off that way, too._

"Dirt caked on my paws," Doggy whined, "dirt in my fur, dirt in my mouth, somehow. It feels like my head has dirt floating in it."

Upright whined in agreement and leaned in, whispering. "I-I'm not sure if I can get used to this. I feel disgusting. Every day it gets worse and worse, and I can't get used to it. Grr." The hackles on his back rose. "I'm ashamed of this body. I'm ashamed of myself—huh?" Several slits on the back of his neck opened. Doggy moved away from the warm breeze gusting out of them. It took just a moment, but by the end the quilava was gasping for air. "W-What was that? Why did I just breathe out of my neck?"

"Those are vents," Doggy said. "When your powers quicken, you can use them to blow fire. I guess you got emotional and triggered them."

"Uh-huh."

"I have some too. In my mouth and ankles. Se-ee-e?" He opened wide, showing of the pocket of flesh which, when Arceus gave him his powers, would fold downwards to release plumes of fire. But, after seeing Upright's own vents, he grew uncomfortable. They were about the same age, yet Doggy hadn't quickened yet. "They're not supposed to open before you quicken—wait-a-sec." His eyes lit up. "So, so cool. Try shooting fire."

"W-Wow. No thanks."

"Don't be a sissy. You feel ashamed, right? Do something you'll be proud of."

The quilava gritted his teeth. Doggy had no idea how to focus fire, nor where to send it. Yet Upright, despite having his body for less than a week, fell into a state of deep concentration. His jowls started to shake as the vents opened again, this time producing a noticeable hiss. He opened his jaw— _click, click, click_.

Doggy dove out of the way. But the fire didn't start from the quilava's jaw: it erupted from his neck. The fire wreath flickered. Even several feet back Doggy felt its intense heat.

"You did it" Doggy started, awestruck. _I wonder if succeeding on the first-try means anything,_ he thought. "Does it hurt?"

Upright grinned from ear to ear. "I..." the fire flared. "It feels so comfortable. Yet, at the same time, I can't help but feel these butterflies in my stomach. Like I am letting more things in than I am letting things out and even then, I have this sensation like I'm about to burst. I… I feel hotter than the sun. I just want to let it all pour out!"

Doggy backed away a few steps. "Hey, simmer down. Don't go razing the plains."

Several ports opened up on Upright's back, hissing like the ones on his neck did before they released fire.

"I'm going to explode!" Upright shouted, swatting the air. "H-Here it comes— _yipe!_ "

Grain flew onto the quilava without warning. Her head slammed against Upright's chest, and the quilava flew straight into the pond. Part-by-part the flames died down as the pokémon screamed and writhed, remembering the last time he had been forced into the water.

Doggy stood at the pond's edge, too stunned to move. Upright managed to flail enough to find dry land and flopped onto it. He breathed in short wheezes, rubbing mud all over himself in appreciation of solid land.

"Hey!" Doggy shouted. "Grain... of all the insensitive pranks, this takes the cake. Grr…" he showed off his fangs. "I don't care if you're bigger or quickened, I'm going to tear you apart."

"I-It's okay," Upright coughed. "I needed a good soak."

"What?"

Grain huffed. "However could the great and mighty Doggy forget about the effects of quickening? Oh, right, you haven't quickened yet. Ten years old and not a lick of fire in that mutt body of yours." She extended a paw to Upright. They worked together, and Upright was out of the pond in no time. "Usually, using your power causes it to wane until you rest for a bit. When you're quickening, though, the power keeps ramping up, regardless of if you want to use them or not. Any longer, and your friend might have hurt himself. Fire pokémon can sear their insides if they go too far."

Liv poked his head into the group. "i remember Grain's quickening. She lit up Sunstarch's nights for weeks."

"And I remember Liv's." Grain chuckled. "The idiot bit _everything_. One time, he went into this fugue state and went scavenging for a deer carcass he sniffed out. It was a good quarter-mile away."

"I had to take on wood-carving to sate my instincts," Liv admitted. "And the carcass didn't taste good. Dociles have life all wrong, meat is better cooked."

Doggy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, and pushing him into the water was the _one_ solution. Admit it, Grain, you wanted to scare him."

"No I didn't," Grain growled. "I wanted to save him from a stupid part of growing up. _Gr… oh… wing_ up." She enunciated every syllable. "You might have heard of it."

Upright sighed. "I feel so embarrassed. I haven't been so filthy, so out-of-order, ever. Ever, ever. I don't know when or how, but I let myself go."

His words earned him a cuff from Grain. Doggy lurched forward, growling. "Quit the self-loathing," she said. "Your dirt and fire means nothing till you give them meaning. All that shame? It comes from up here." She ruffled the quilava's soggy head. "I'd call you an idiot, but it might be the amnesia. You've forgot your pride."

"I have," Upright said, raising his chin up high. "Yeah, I forgot my pride. I'll do my best going forward!"

"I like you. Keep this up, and _maybe_ I don't drop you like a hot potato the moment we get to Pathen. Because, let's face it: stink however you like, your choice of company makes my nose crinkle."

"Doggy is kind," Upright said. "If it wasn't for him, I would be in Sunstarch still. Give him a chance instead of mocking him all the time."

All the while, Doggy's paws sank deeper into the mud. He snarled so hard his chest thrummed. "I don't want a chance from her. She pushed you in as a joke, and tricked you into thanking her for it. She manipulated you like she does to Liv."

The linoone balked. "Oh. Uncalled for, Doggy."

"I didn't do it to be mean," Grain said.

"You did. At least in Sunstarch you were an honest bully..."

 _Two days,_ Doggy remembered. _If I can't handle her for seven days, do I deserve to be an adventurer?_ In the world, there were worse creatures than this shinx. _I just don't want her taking Upright from me. I've never been so close to anyone… knew so much about anyone._

And yet he knew nothing. Doggy cut his insult short. The quilava nodded his approval.

"Hey," Tello called, charging forward from his grazing spot by the carriage. "The pond-water is stagnant, and also the last gulp for any travelers heading in before winter. You think critters want to drink from a sullied pond?"

Upright shook his head. "No, never-"

"You're wet. Look here: over time, you gain an immunity to wear and tear. Your pelt shuns spiff after awhile, so don't give in to habits and go diving into our drinking water."

"I was pushed..."

"Sure, sure. Time for dinner. Jerky and hardtack; good luck eating it, pups."

* * *

The four ate together in silence. Doggy traded off trying to sink his teeth into the jerky and hardtack, unable to tear off either. They were tougher than a sycamore tree. He took a peek over at Grain. The other three pokémon were having an easier time. All seemed to be emulating the shinx, who sawed her teeth through the food.

Furious to have been snubbed, Doggy doubled down on his own strategy. He tore into the jerky with a monstrous bite. There was a morsel of seasoning in the strip of leather.

 _It doesn't matter_ , he told himself. _I've always eaten alone, anyway. And if Upright wants to befriend a jerk, that's his choice. See if she helps him return to his world._

 _I've always eaten alone_ echoed in his head. Doggy shoved the food away: he had lost his appetite for the evening.

After dinner, everyone settled down to their own hobbies. For Grain, it was a nap. For Liv and Upright, it was nestling up to a fire, the quilava watching Liv chew on something. At first it seemed Doggy wasn't the only one to have trouble chewing, but as the growlithe circled around, it turned out the linoone's food was, in reality, a wood block.

Curiosity got the better of Doggy. Or, the hunger he shunned earlier came back, and company in the empty plains became irresistible. He came forward slowly to not scare the linoone.

"Hey," he said, "what are you doing?"

Liv raised his teeth from the block and spat out a splinter. "Making a carving of Kyogre."

The growlithe turned his head to the side.

"Er, guardian of the great ocean, bringer of fertility, rain deity, father of suicune, brother of articuno, harbinger of the depths inside of those who bear the affinity of water, master of all that is and all that will be unfathomable."

Doggy pretended to understand his rambling. "I, uh, know who he is. Never took you to be devout."

"Each figurine sells for fifty poké. I earned this trip by selling these."

Upright nodded. "He gave me a finished one, look." In his paws was an immaculate carving of Moltres. Doggy's first thought was that teeth couldn't make something so fine. Its pose gave off power. Its eyes, just rounded, empty bits of wood, transformed into fiery gems, the longer Doggy was held by its gaze. Liv had painstakingly worked down to the smallest detail, to the sharp edges of fire billowing from Moltres's wings.

"He says it will keep me from losing my temper. Do-" Upright adopted the look of a creature tumbling through a briar patch-"you need one? Oops—want! Do you _want_ one?" Upright hugged the figurine, smiling abashedly.

"These aren't free," Liv said. "I gave you a complementary one. I don't have a clue how humans live, but it looks like you're having it rough."

Upright dropped the figurine. He scooped it up before sparks from the fire got to it.

"Grain didn't say, but episodes like yours only happen under duress. Maybe an idol will help ease you into our way of life. By the way: I won't tell a soul. Neither will Grain, for the sheer reason neither of us want to look insane. But, nonetheless, that was a discount for a friend."

Doggy's chest tightened up. "Oh..."

"I sympathize with you, understand why you are hesitant to trust us. Your behavior so far, though, I find abrasive. And you're loud. I reserve my right to pick my friends, travelling companions notwithstanding. It's okay if we don't match up. There will be plenty of pokémon in Pathen. Maybe if I got to know you better-for now, it's fifty poké or you can pray to the Legendary's constellations tonight."

"I think you're wrong," Upright said. "You have to put in an effort to know someone. You can't just, just… _observe_ people."

" _People_. Pee-oh-pole." Liv tried the word, rolling it over on his tongue. "Neat. Anyway. This isn't a hobby for me. If I'm not making a profit, the magic goes away."

Doggy interrupted with a bitter laugh. "Oh, okay. If this isn't a hobby, why are you doing it, huh? Why?!"

Liv stopped gnawing on the wooden block. "Because it helps me relax. These wood figurines, they have value. Every sale could feed me for a day. Well..." he smiled. "This isn't true. Er, it's _true_ but not the point."

Doggy scratched his ears. This explanation was worse than their roundabout path through the floodplains. He bit down a complaint. _Two days left,_ Doggy reminded himself. _For whatever reason, Grain has been remarkably quiet besides the encounter at the pond. Don't blow things out of proportion this close to the goal._

"What's the point, Liv?" Doggy asked—in his best measured tone.

"I _really_ love money," Liv said, hunching down. He grinned guiltily. "I love spending it, I love having it, most of all, I love earning it. When I get to the Initiative, it's not about adventuring to me, no, it's about money."

Grain popped up from her nap. The shinx turned her head to the side, quiet but with her mouth hung open, ready to say something. Then she slammed her paws into the dirt.

" _Seriously!"_ Grain cried. "Of all the greedy, stupid comments to say out loud… _it's not about adventuring._ Yes it is. Maybe your dull mind can't make the connection."

Liv balked. "I was, um, kidding around. Sorry."

 _How did she not know about Liv's motives?_ Doggy wondered. _I thought these two were thicker than thieves._ In the schoolyard Liv never abandoned Grain for long. When it was the advent days of Grain's bullying, and she still deigned to rub Doggy's face in the dirt, Liv stood by her side looking out for the teacher. The linoone didn't speak up once while his friend pummeled the other pups at school, bullied them to tears. The times Fab caught Grain in the act, sending her to brood alone in a fenced-off pen, Liv answered her beckons over to the lonely corner so it was never an actual punishment. _How does Grain get a follower like him, and I get nobody?!_

"You know," Doggy said, sitting down, pawing at his eyes, "this is stupid. Grain, you joined because you love making other pokémon feel awful. So, so what if Liv joined for money? In my books you're both vicious. I'm sick of pretending—not just that, I've put in a real effort—to be chummy with you two because we're going to be adventurers! Well, once we are, don't bother talking to me. And you can go ahead and take Upright with you... Upright?"

Upright climbed into the carriage and shut the door. The silhouette of his head poked out from behind the screen.

"Come now," Tello called from his grazing place. "Don't scrap. Ain't able to tell you how awkward it is to sit in a tight cart after a squabble."

It was too late to talk down Grain. Even Liv—less perturbed by the comment—failed to block her path.

"You think you know everything, huh?" Grain asked, moving forward. "Here's a shocker: no one asked you to be nice to us. Not all of us lead nifty lives like yours. All… all easy, comfy. For us real world kids, whenever grownups try to make the Territory seem spiffy, we know it isn't. Your parents told the same lies I bet, but you were too dumb to figure them out. Until now, maybe, I don't know."

Doggy recoiled. It was right on the mark.

"Liv and I were stuck preparing for life in the Territory, while you kept being you. Money matters in the Territory, as does strength… you never faced the fact these things don't mix well with being chummy. You stupid, idiotic…"

Doggy leaned in. He gave up his fighting pose. "Grain. You're crying."

The shinx stopped her march, sitting down in a patch of grass. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes. "I decided to become an adventurer because I can't live that life a second longer. I'm not here to hurt you. And Liv, you don't really want more money, right? What if you could live a life where money wasn't important?"

Liv sighed, shaking his head. "I don't know about any of this, Grain. It's possible."

"And the quilava hiding like a-" she laughed-"like a _scaredy-cat_ in the carriage. I'd bet anything he left to avoid whatever waited for him in Sunstarch. You did, too, Doggy." Grain looked the growlithe in the eyes. "Please. Don't say all this is so I can bully more pokémon. Let me enjoy this."

The plains grew quiet as the sun descended. Again came the orange glow. It shone on each and every one of the pokémon in the campsite, and all the pokémon traveling within the miles of visible land. They passed, no more than orange shapes, their motives and lives indistinguishable.

"You are so full of it," Doggy spat. "All the time."

The moment he said it, Grain turned tail and fled to the carriage. Liv, giving Doggy an angry glance, also scurried inside after the shinx, and a shrill conversation started inside the leather room. To Doggy's surprise, Upright didn't retreat from the yelling, instead, his voice soon came in among the others.

Doggy walked up to the door, frustrated at being snubbed once again. It was locked.

"Fine!" He barked. "I'll sleep outside tonight!"

Even their driver gave him a look-over. "Lad," the tauros said, shaking his great head. "the cat only wishes to know something better."

"Yeah. And what if I _know_ she doesn't deserve it?"

"Over a childhood rivalry."

"R-Right. Except these are our lives, not our childhoods. You're too old to understand."

The tauros lifted himself from the grass with a grunt. "I comprehend it, child, no doubt about that. I've seen slivers of light in dark pokémon. Much like the sunset, the light makes those creatures it touches incomprehensible till dawn comes the next day. Speaking from experience, those like your shinx will have changed for the better. Do not a-fear the change, lad."

All at once, Doggy slumped over with the burden of a full day's journey. He didn't have it in him to wonder at the world, or even "a-fear" its changes. A seedling grew in his head of what an adventurer experienced: the most beautiful, awe-inspiring sights, the greatest stories, and the constant reminder that nothing would ever be simple again.

Doggy found a spot in a thick patch of grass. He closed his eyes and slept, fitfully, as the memory of Grain's eyes before she fled curdled his stomach.

* * *

By dawn, Doggy steeled himself for traveling in the carriage with the other three. The tauros, shooting him sly glances, helped usher him up the ramp. Inside it smelt of dander, and Doggy crinkled his nose, ready to ask if they could clean up before going. Then he looked at Liv, Upright, Grain, all of them seeming like they wanted to get a move-on.

He almost chose to ask anyway. His eyes found Grain, paws up on the seat, staring out the window. Through the window, and with her yellow eyes, she could have watched Doggy writhe in his sleep.

"Let's go," the growlithe muttered, humbled by the realization.

After some preparation, the carriage took off. Doggy found a corner for himself and focused on the rumbles of the cart.

"So," Liv said, breaking the silence. "What will Pathen be like?"

Upright perked up. "I'm, um, curious as well. Will there actually be thousands of pokémon?"

"I believe so. Lots of business."

"In the meantime," Upright added, with pep leaking into his voice, "we can imagine it."

"Imagine it?" Grain asked, refusing to look away from her window.

"Wherever… Where I came from, stories kept me alive. I don't remember any of them, but I remember how it feels to be whisked away to a world of your choosing. The funny part is, a good story doesn't make you jealous. You feel adventurous, like you can find it."

Liv's eyes lit up. "Hm, adventurous. That might be beneficial for us."

Upright chuckled. "Listen. I imagine Pathen will be a city of towers, towers which soar above the ground. And when you go to the top of these towers and muster up the courage to look down, you will see every color ever, of every creature exploring Pathen's streets. It will be a place built with brick and cobble, and smell clean despite a thousand pokémon sharing its streets—there will be latrines, thankfully!"

Grain stepped away from the window, giggling. She sat down, listening to the quilava.

Upright grew somber. "When you walk among the crowd, people ignore you." Then the smile redoubled. "But it's because they are all so busy. It's because they accept you, not because you're different.

"Everyone acknowledges who you are. They help you understand, since reaching an understanding helps all creatures in Pathen flourish. Places of business, places of learning, stalls and urchins, a park of… of pink trees, they all cry out, explaining themselves as to help you never be confused again. No matter who you are, or where you came from, you will drift towards your purpose like a shadow forming a shape under the right point of the sun. You are surrounded by towers, and are permitted to climb them all. It's freedom.

"And when you reach the Adventurer's Initiative, they have the best towers of all. They spin, spin in sections and spin to let you come inside, making that sense of understanding, of belonging, become much more meaningful. From them you may see the place called the Outside. The Outside is supposed to scare you. It makes you want to hide among the crowds. But at this point, all you can see is hope. You see hope and are safe."

Grain and Liv grinned at each other. Doggy roused himself from the corner, finally wrenching loose from the rumbling of the cart.

 _Is this how he calmed down?_ Doggy wondered. _Ever since he slept in the schoolyard. The dream he had there, that's what he described._

"Thank you," Liv said. "I can't describe it, but hearing you promise so much made me happy."

Upright held out his paws. "H-Hey, _promise?_ Don't hold me to it! It's what I dreamed about a couple nights ago. It's kept me going, and… I thought it might help with..."

Doggy hung his head. _Upright isn't even from this world, and in a few hours of sleep he convinced himself to accept his lot in life. What have I done lately? Whined about how Grace and Grain treated me?_

"I'm sorry, Grain," Doggy said.

The carriage hit a hitch. All of the children went fumbling out of their spots, gathering into a pile in the middle.

"Sorry!" Tello called out, his voice mischievous.

Doggy tried to look away as he apologized, but now the shinx laid a foot away from him. She turned with a scowl towards the front of the carriage, ready to yell at their driver, but stopped before the first word.

"Are you really?" She asked. "Last night… I remember hearing you say I am _full of it_."

"If you say you want to change for the better," Doggy said, "then I believe you. Upright made me realize something when he talked about Pathen: all these years, it seemed as though you hated me. But really, you and Liv were the only ones who included me in Sunstarch. Maybe you weren't my first friends, but it's okay. You were the first _something_ 's."

"We bullied you," Grain said, taken aback. "I rubbed your nose in the dirt."

"No one else cared enough to put my nose anywhere!" Doggy pressed a paw into the leather bench. "The other children were okay leaving me alone. Thank you, Grain."

The shinx flew back to her window. Her brow became furrowed as she watched the world roll by.

"I imagine," she said, after a period of contemplation. "I imagine… Pathen will be made out of peanut brittle."

Doggy cocked his head to the side. "Come again?"

"You heard me. It's all peanut brittle. The streets, the pokémon, Upright's tower. All sweet brittle."

The quilava scratched his muzzle. "Are you making fun of me?"

"You have to get your paws wet to go anywhere, else you stick to the floor. Everybody walks through Pathen with their tongues to the ground, because the brittle tastes delicious and never grows stale."

Liv chuckled. "Everybody's licking the ground where other pokémon walk and lick? I know you like peanut brittle, Grain, but this is preposterous."

Grain wagged her tail, the star at the end whipping the bench. "The floor magically cleans itself. Take _that._ "

"N-No way," Liv said. "Pathen will be chock full of merchant guilds, job postings and money. I'll make ten-thousand poké and, at day's end, say: _yikes, what an off day!_ And donate it all to poor pokémon in the Territory out of embarrassment. What about you, Doggy?"

The growlithe grew skittish. It felt strange, not fighting or pouting in the carriage. It felt so good, when it came to an end, he might spend a lot of time wishing to be back in the smelly heat-box.

 _But this is how it will be,_ Doggy thought. _When we adventure Outside._

"I vote for Upright's idea," Doggy said. "It's so cool."

The quilava looked over at him, surprised. The surprise faded into a coy smirk.

"Well, I like Grain's idea," Upright teased. "I guess it wins."

Doggy thudded his tail against the ground. "Sure. You want peanut brittle."

"I change my vote to Upright's image," Liv said, "if only to prevent a life of smelling like peanut butter."

Grain sprung down from the window. "Nuh-uh, you can't stall the proceedings. Not fair!"

The linoone reclined on the bench. "Welcome to bureaucracy."

"Bur-wha?"

"It means: good luck getting what you want."

"Fine! Doggy, change your vote."

Doggy nodded. "Okay. I am really particular towards money, so Liv's idea."

Liv nodded in tandem. "Ah, my dream has a chance. I vote for money."

"I didn't know he would do that," Doggy lied.

"No! I'll make you follow my dreams, you stupid mutt."

Grain pounced on the growlithe, pinning him to the ground. For a sheer moment Doggy couldn't breathe, the memory of his schoolyard years knocking the wind out of him. Already his legs began to tremble, ready for her electric jolts. But the shinx waited, giving him time to adjust. No shocks. No rough bites. Just play-wrestling.

He took a deep breath.

"Never!" He cried, turning the pin around on her. The rolled around, bumping against the walls, against Upright and Liv, against everything, laughing the whole time through.

* * *

 **A/N: seven-thousand word chapter, why not? It was going to be longer, but I clipped off a part to use as the opening for the next chapter. Bad news you can't read it now, good news it's ~1,500 words put towards the next chapter, so it will come sooner. Are these chapters too long? Is everything making sense? How's the pacing? Feel free to let me know: I'll be here all night, tip the waiter, yadda yadda yadda.**

 **Also, a big thanks to the humble user named Ralmon. Without Ralmon's input, I don't know if I would have been able to continue this effort. He hasn't published any stories (yet), or else I'd recommend them fully... so, er, go read what he favorites if you want a quick selection of excellent works-and one meandering mess called Deathseeker Doggy, or whatever ;)**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Well, I finally did it. I forgot to save a document and wound up saying** ¡hasta la vista! **to seven thousand words. In order to keep some sort of consistency I got the action scene down as well as its fallout. Sorry...**

* * *

Doggy blinked to get the carriage back into view. Shards of glass rained from the back of Doggy's head. The remaining window funneled in orange light.

He huffed, unable to see past his forepaws. _If my head felt full of dust before,_ he thought.

"What do we do?!" Upright's voice. It tapered off into a yowl.

Liv spoke next—his voice, on the contrary, sounded flat. "The bandits must be gone. They got to the bags."

Sniffles. Doggy glanced up, squinting at Grain's shape by the door. "No way. I can smell them. I smell blood, too."

"My nose is numb," Liv replied. "All my senses are gone. I can't even see straight… Grain?"

His hushed tone was the final push to return Doggy's vision. The linoone surmised their fears with the shinx's name: _does it end here for us?_ Before they saw Pathen, before they joined the Initiative, after all the emotion that went into their choice, their journey could end without ever beginning.

It was already over for Tello. His roars had ceased, replaced by the bandits' focused rummaging. The other three children collapsed into tears. Doggy wished to join them, and would have, if he weren't dazed.

In the recesses of his mind, instinct started to rouse his spirit. Somewhere, amidst the panic, he returned to the same thoughts he had whenever Grain bullied him, or when he had to save Upright. His pride returned piece by piece.

The growlithe took in a deep breath. Then another. _You're a deathseeker, Doggy,_ he thought, standing up. _No matter the situation._ _If you can't survive this… you don't deserve to be an adventurer!_

"Liv," he said, coughing. "Lock the door."

His friends whipped around to look at him. Doggy refused to betray his fear. His presence seemed to calm the others.

"Lock it," he repeated, louder this time.

The growlithe's confidence relaxed the linoone. He slipped over to the door and slid its bar in place, no questions asked.

Doggy gestured for them to come in close. Now, his voice fell to a whisper. As he became quiet, so did their surroundings. The entire clearing was noiseless.

"They think we've trapped ourselves," Doggy whispered.

"W-We did," Upright said. Then, unable to control himself, the quilava threw his paws over his eyes. "Tello..."

Doggy nodded. "Good, Upright. Keep crying. You too, Grain. They can't hear us plotting."

The shinx walked over to the center of their tipped carriage. She opened up and let out a sad howl.

"Help!" She mewled. "Anyone!"

"Shut your mouth," a bandit snarled from outside. "We'll get to you later."

She hissed under her breath. "Bastard." For the moment, it seemed she had found herself. A twinkle appeared the shinx's yellow eyes.

Upright, whether he meant to or not, joined in on the plan, shouting Tello's name.

"Liv," Doggy said. "You've quickened, right?"

The linoone shuddered. "I can't fight. Those are adults, I'll be slaughtered-"

"We're jumping out the window. You have to go first."

"Why?"

"Breaking the other window knocked me out. Your fangs are better."

Liv looked up. He snapped his teeth and spun around. "Tello should have listened to that grovyle.."

"Regrets won't help us."

"Yeah."

"You have to be ready. Everyone has to jump through and run the same direction. So..." he didn't want to be the one who led them straight into a bandit's clutches. Once they reached the brush, escape wasn't impossible. They had no idea what laid between the brush and the several yards of clearing. "Follow me," he said.

There was no use waiting: Doggy rose his mouth and started to howl.

"W-What if they find out," he cried, "that all our valuables are hidden underneath the benches?!"

The rummaging stopped. "Well, our job just got a bit easier," a bandit said. He let out a scratchy cackle.

A terrified, betrayed look flashed over Upright's face. Even Grain stopped whining, turning she should gape at him. Liv, at least, knew the plan: he tensed himself, ready to pounce.

Doggy thought of something else. "Grain—when they try to open the door, put a bolt through the handle. Like you used to do to me at the school's trough. Whenever he attempted to drink from the trough at school, Grain would hide underneath and spark, giving the hunk of metal a nasty current. He hoped she could amplify it to harmful levels: the ornate handle to the carriage was btonze.

Grain grinned, sneaking over to the door. "Good idea. I'll really give it to them-"

The handle jerked, breaking off the wood. Doggy's heart stopped beating. His veins turned to ice in the sweltering box. As Grain flew towards the door, her fur standing on end, her jaw reaching for the handle while the door flung open, Doggy fled to the corner.

 _I always try to quit_ , he thought, stopping. _There's no more time for doubt._

"Now!" He sputtered, his heart thrumming. "Break the window, Liv!"

Grain let out a yowl. The door cracked open an inch, revealing a furious poliwhirl on the other side.

Doggy heard the glass shatter. He looked up, expecting to see Liv climbing out. Instead: there was screaming, the plopping of blood on the floor of the carriage. A blitzle had broken through the window first—the bandits had planned to cut off their escape. Liv jumped anyway, too pent-up to stop his charge. Now he hung from the blitzle's face.

Liv, spurred on by his power, bit down had on the blitzle's snout. She howled and bucked out of the window, taking the linoone with him. The bandits outside began whooped.

 _The other bandits will be watching the windows now_ , Doggy realized. _We have no way out of here!_

A high pitched whine broke out. Grain was still howling.

Something happened: a ripple went through the door—it wavered as if it was made of water. The poliwhirl's eyes twitched and it bolted up, like it was standing attention.

"B-B-B-B," he stammered. "B-B-B..."

"Bully?" Grain asked. Eerily, she sounded more curious than angry.

"Brat," the poliwhirl gasped.

She lunged forward.

An explosion rocked the carriage. Doggy, not thinking, flew in front of Upright to block the splinters. They shredded him, but miraculously, most of the shrapnel went outside.

Doggy looked up, opening his eyes. Grain was panting, a static field protecting her from the wood. Her concern was the poliwhirl: it laid in the rubble of the door, not moving. A faint smoke rose from the bandit, and his body had been thoroughly lacerated. If he had been a stag, not hardened like all pokémon, there would be little bits spread across the grass.

"I..." Grain balked, backing away. "I-I think I killed him."

Doggy breathed hard, trying to voice his thoughts.

He shook his head wildly. "Now's our chance. Go, Grain, go!" He forced Upright to follow with a sharp tug on his arm. They broke outside. Fresh air seemed to help Grain, who had to hop over the poliwhirl to leave. Doggy did too, trying not to pay the creature any mind.

Outside, Liv had incited chaos in the remaining three bandits. They chased the lithe pokémon. They vied to be the one to take him out: at the moment, the blitzle led the pack. Its eyes blazed with fury at having been bitten. She gained on the pup, who was making a mad sprint for Tello's body.

The blitzle dove. Doggy spotted the ripples in his pelt—the growlithe shouted Liv's name.

Liv's powers quickened again, giving him agility. He dove into the satchel, spun around, and drove something into the blitzle's maw as it tried to bite him.

She reared up, eyes rolling down to see the wooden idol of Xerneas stuck in her maw. Like the door, it began to wobble. Like the door, it exploded.

She fell onto her side, wailing and kicking at the air in vain. Liv snarled at her, glanced at an approaching scyther, and bolted towards the brush.

"After him," Doggy told Upright.

The quilava didn't need to be told twice. He fell onto to all fours and—for the first time, Doggy realized—moved like a pokémon. He was surprisingly quick, and Doggy's own legs pounded the ground in pursuit.

Grain's shout broke his concentration. He skidded to a stop, short of cover.

He turned around, ready to face whatever bandit had caught up to them. Grain wasn't nearby. She was over Tello''s body, struggling in the grip of a heracross. Tello showed no signs of life.

 _Idiot!_ He thought. _Why did she go over to him?_

She held a pouch in her mouth. Their payment, plus… a blue ball at the bottom of the bag. Daté's orb, which he had given to Tello for safekeeping until they arrived in Pathen. X

This heracross was different from the poliwhirl. When Grain tried to use her power, however concentrated, the heracross's chitin absorbed it. She was harmless again, about to have her bones snapped by the bandit's pincers.

 _That armor is too much for my teeth..._

Grain's words in the forest a week ago came to him: _you don't thrust your claws into it. You slash across, adding small cuts, weakening your opponent until you can…_

Doggy's body-heat rose until he felt nauseous. He huffed, digging his paws into the ground.

 _Grain really is a good pokémon,_ he realized. _Tello brought us along, even so we annoyed him. He cared enough to break a promise to someone who could easily hurt him. He deserves our help!_

The scyther walked in between Doggy and the heracross.

"Take care," he said. "This growlithe is quickening."

Doggy gaped. _I am? I am._

The heracross grunted. "Who cares, Ormen? These children are all out of tricks. Guess what?" He called out to the growlithe. "She killed Spritz. I'll make her suffer for that. _"_

"Stop it!" Doggy barked.

"Don't approach," the scyther, Ormen, said. "I will maim you before your attack even begins. I would rather spare you the pain."

Something inside of Doggy demanded to take control. Battle instinct. Even Doggy himself didn't know what his body planned to do with all this fire. He might expel fire from his mouth, or spray sparks from his ankles.

He lowered himself. The answer was neither: he wanted to bite.

The scyther shot forward before Doggy had taken a step. Ormen's blades seemed crimson in the evening's light. He was upon the growlithe on the third step.

Doggy's paws flared with heat.

Ormen sent his blades flying down.

Doggy dodged it.

He slid across the grass, propelled by a burst of energy in his paws. Wherever his paws touched, the grass became blackened. When his slide finished, and it left him tumbling, smoke rose from the line he created. He rose to his feet and rushed the heracross who, perhaps spurred by confidence, didn't drop Grain to guard.

The growlithe leaped and punched his teeth into the heracross's shoulder. The bandit laughed.

"You've just shattered your own teeth, idiot! What sort of fire-affinity charges in like that?" He shook, expecting Doggy to fall the ground, teeth reduced to powder. "Huh?" Doggy didn't fall, or even slump over. He remained embedded in the heracross, body straight as a log.

"Defend yourself," Ormen recommended. "The child has you."

"No… no, they're kids. All our practice, and we can't fight kids?" He squeezed Grain's neck, whose struggles had faded.

The heat in Doggy's paws returned. He growled, his last warning.

Ormen snorted. "Don't call me for help."

"Help? I won't need—gah..."

Doggy flipped himself, teeth still gripped in the heracross. The bug jerked—the spin let the growltihe dig in a bit deeper. Doggy spun again, then again, until he had a rhythm going. By the eighth spin, Doggy felt blood in his mouth, and it wasn't his own.

"Ah, my armor! H-How is he doing this?" The heracross cried. He slammed Grain into the ground and extended a pincer to remove the nuisance.

Doggy's legs deflected the claw. The spinning grew faster, faster, till Doggy lost count.

The bandit howled with pain, now attempting to stop the growlithe using both claws. One of them didn't follow: Grain, panting for air, grabbed his right arm.

A _crack_ resounded through the forest. Blood flowed freely from the heracross's shoulder, as did smoke.

" _Orm-ee-n!_ " He screeched. He fell to the ground, which did little to stop either pokémon. "Ormen..." he started to sob. "Ormen-" Grain bucked her hind legs into his head. "Ah… please..."

A gust of wind knocked Grain and Doggy off of the heracross. The scyther had knocked them away with a swing of his arms.

 _He didn't do it before,_ Doggy thought, struggling to his feet. _What kind of pokémon lets his friend suffer?_

"Be thankful your hubris didn't bring you to Spritz's fate," Ormen chided. "You two have done enough damage to my company. Surrender the bag and come with me. You have no more tricks to spare."

"All this over fifteen-thousand poké," Doggy said. His teeth throbbed. It was painful enough to steal his vision. "Grain, get to the trees..."

Grain had picked up the pouch. She stared ahead, perfectly stoic.

"Mutt… I'm still wondering. What's your _real_ name?" The shinx asked.

Doggy understood. "Grain, don't do it."

"What is it?"

The growlithe hung his head. "It's Doggy, Grain. It's always been Doggy."

She smiled through her grip on the pouch. "Wow. You aren't lying. Well, I've always thought you deserved a better one. You want this?" She called, addressing the last bandit. "Come and get it from me!"

She turned and bolted for the trees, bag in her mouth. Ormen gave Doggy a look, a note of surprise on his face. Then his wings began to hum. He gave pursuit, flying into the forest at breakneck pace. In a matter of seconds, all sounds of their chase disappeared.

Once again, the sounds of nature returned to Warm Woods. It sounded like any other place. But the smell of burnt flesh and blood hung in the air. Their carriage laid in pieces.

Doggy started to move, not sure to where but walking just for the sake of it. Something pressed against his hindpaw.

Daté's orb: when Ormen had blown them away, Grain had somehow hidden it under him. With the dying light and his shadow cast over it, even its glow was too dull to notice from a distance.

Doggy sat down, staring at the wreckage.

Minutes later, Upright emerged from the forest. He moved slowly, trying to get near the growlithe. Doggy heard him breathing and twisted his head, barking at the quilava with bared teeth. The quilava didn't flinch.

"Sorry," Doggy whispered. He resumed his vigil. The heracross and blitzle were incapacitated by pain. They posed little threat for the time being.

"Liv saw Grain run away. He chased after her, I couldn't stop him."

"He'll be back."

Upright nodded. "Is this what it means to be a pokémon? The powers, the fighting. The killing. You almost had me convinced."

"Of what?"

"That pokémon are the same as humans. But they're not. What happened here was… was... I can't think straight. I have no idea what to say, let alone do."

Doggy wiped the blood off his muzzle. _I was almost convinced, too,_ he thought numbly. _When Grain said she didn't want to hurt me anymore._

Upright walked over to Tello. Doggy thought the quilava was all cried-out for the day, but the quilava started to sob.

"Oh, D-Doggy." Upright gasped. "He's alive. T-Tello's still breathing. How do we heal him? These gashes are huge."

"I don't know." His mind was dust. He stared on while Upright made attempts to soak the wounds with spare blankets from Tello's bag.

Soon, Upright saw the futility. He sat down, rubbing Tello's shoulder with a paw. He shut down, like the growlithe had.

Liv arrived half an hour later to the two staring up at the sky. He panted hoarsely.

"I couldn't find her," he whined. "Grain was my one friend. Now she's gone." He tested the word. "I'll never see her again. Maybe, though..."

The other two responded to the noise.

"Tello's alive," Upright said to no one.

"If I was stronger," Doggy recited to himself. "If I was faster. If I was smarter. If I was braver. If.."

Liv sniffed the air. Then he walked over to the carriage, taking care to avoid the poliwhirl. He came out holding a wood block. Sitting by the carriage, he began to lazily sculpt a figurine in the shinx's image.

* * *

"Every single time," a sandshrew said, throwing his claws into the air. "I regret your idea of _fun_."

A mudkip jumped onto a low-hanging branch. He tested its bearing with a couple of bounces. It snapped, and he spun in midair to land on his paws. The branch smacked the ground nearby, its remaining fall leaves exploded into the air.

" _So-oo-bre_." The mudkip groaned. We are about five minutes ahead. Imagine the crazy fun of finding something _dangerous_ , and having to run or fight it."

"Oh yes, fun for all the crazies, Acker."

"No, crazy fun for everyone—gah." Acker rolled forward. He sprung up right in front of Sobre, causing the sandshrew to dive backwards. "So. We never played much during our time in school. What made our dads agree to take me to the Initiative?"

Sobre pondered a drifting scent. After years in a brewery, he had a nose trained to trouble boiling in the kegs and elsewhere. It was too faint to discern. "Well," he said, "our families have always been allies." He, Sobre Wright, and the ball of energy, Acker Flow, were just two more heads forced together by their family's treatise.

"The earth and the rivers are inseparable," Acker recited. He raised his head and sniffed the air, tail-fin slowing down. "I bet you really don't care for me all that much."

Sobre fumbled for words. He stumbled over a few possible lies before taking a chance on the mudkip's smile. "No, not at all. This night-walking business scares the daylight out of me. You are loud."

Acker's smile didn't falter a smidgen. He turned around and started to walk down the path, towards the strange smell. "That's hunkie-dory. Let's not gab about it to your father, though."

The sandshrew sighed. "I know what you're doing."

The mudkip cocked his head to the side.

"You're being accommodating to rope me in. I really don't want to be out here."

"You told me already… oh." Now, Acker's smile turned into an understanding frown. The pokémon changed himself like water, always trying to pour into the sandshrew. Sobre appreciated his drinks fermented. "You're afraid they won't accept you, and you will disappoint your father."

Once again, Sobre found his legs swept out from under him. "W-What? I just don't want to adventure. I'd much rather tend to the breweries."

Acker shot him a coy grin.

"I loathe you, to be brutally honest.."

The grin grew wider.

"Fine! I despise the thought of failure. My father says in the past couple years, the Adventure Initiative's recruitment process has become far more rigorous. Did you know, the Initiative last year accepted a measly thirty apprentices for Outside roles, and fifteen of those graduated? Those numbers should worry anyone."

"Nuh-uh! My father says they'll love me if I show my stuff. Flows have a one hundred percent acceptance rate. Bang!" He teetered over, throwing his weight into a tree. Once again, his nose lifted.

Sobre took a whiff as well. They both stopped dead in their tracks. The sandshrew forgot his manners and began to bleat, this smell was not far worse than discovering a botched batch of drink. Acker breathed it in.

"I think our foray through Warm Woods is at an end," Sobre said. "Come on, Acker, come on now."

"That smelly smell, it's on the path." Acker skittered back. "A-Ah! Somebody must've been mugged!"

"Improbable, impossible! Every cart going through at this time has an armed guard. Our cart has _three_ , for crying out loud, no one is dumb enough to rob an East Territory escort."

"Use your eyes, not your sniffer."

Sobre squinted, trying to see through the grogginess. His eyes widened, and his bleating grew louder. A cart laid destroyed in a larger clearing ahead. Darkness seeped into its entire front—where a door should be was a gaping hole. In front of the carriage, hard to discern, but definitely possible, was a _body_.

"It blew apart from the inside-out," Sobre breathed. "Acker?"

The mudkip had sprinted down the path.

"Good idea," the sandshrew called. "I'll go the other way and get help."

He turned around—his eyes fell on the path back. Dark and menacing, with odds of housing the same bandits who blew the carriage apart from the inside, which could mean one thing: psychics. Sobre imagined crossing paths with a murderous psychic, his body pulled apart as he struggled to take control of his mind.

"Actually, I'll go with you! I _loathe_ the woods, I _loathe_ this mudkip, I _loathe_ traveling..."

Up ahead, Acker had skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing. By the time Sobre reached the edge—also coming to a stop, not willing to take the lead-the mudkip was shivering.

Then he flat-out bolted the other way. Sobre watched him leave, jaw ajar. He took his own turn looking out at the wreckage.

There were pokémon alive, two of them that were small enough to be his age. There was a large, hulking body in by the carriage, its chest heaving. One, two, three grownups, all the same.

 _A full company?_ Sobre thought. _This carriage looks familiar… is that old Tello?_ Tello, the tauros who was supposed to deliver him to Pathen. At least, until his father ousted him. He was promised an ample sum, a place within the walls of the Wright's comfy estate. All the drink he could ever desire. Yet the tauros chose this, a life's end at the hands of bandits. Tello never used guards. So the three grownups were bandits defeated by the carriage-driver.

Sobre inched forward. _All of this is terrifying. But what could make Acker run away? Better yet: if_ he _ran, why haven't I?_

"Hello?" He asked the two children. They both looked up quietly. "I'm here to help. Um..."

A third body appeared from behind Tello's. Its yellow eyes flared in the gloom, and when Sobre met the glare, he was unable to break away. The creature had to be psychic, as it had taken complete control of the sandshrew's body through mere eye-contact.

 _It's going to kill me_ , Sobre realized. _I can see it in its eyes, it's going to tear me to ribbons-_

"Help us," the monster begged. The fire in his eyes faded, without that fire, the beast became a quilava. The pokémon waddled forward on his hind legs.

Sobre backed away, but didn't flee. "Okay. Stay over there, though."

"Tello is alive," the quilava said.

Sobre found a nervous smile. "That's good. Our carriage has supplies to mend wounds."

"Tello is alive," the quilava repeated. He curled in on himself and fell asleep.


End file.
